


Comrades in Arms

by Scruggzi



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Choices, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Justice, S01E04 Death at Victoria Dock extra scene, WW1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 03:50:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9801401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scruggzi/pseuds/Scruggzi
Summary: Having saved a bank full of people from a machine gun wielding anarchist, Phryne returns to Wardlow with Jack. On the way they discuss death, justice and their experience of war.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking about how Phryne would react to killing someone and if it had been something she had actually done before as part of a chapter I'm writing for a longer fic. It occurred to me that, although it's left a bit ambiguous it looks a lot like she straight up kills a guy in this episode and everyone subsequently pretends Hugh did it. I thought it was something Phryne and Jack might discuss on their way home.

The Inspector watched Miss Fisher carefully as he led her out of the bank to her waiting motorcar. He didn't need the tell-tale pitch of her voice or Hugh’s nervous glance towards her as she gave him credit for her heroism, to know it was not his constable who had killed a man that day. Jack had been a soldier, he knew what it meant to take a life and Collins had yet to lose that innocence. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that there was very little that was innocent about the Honourable Miss Fisher. Her face now appeared perfectly composed, if perhaps more serious than usual. She leant her weight on him a little as she took his arm.

  
Phryne felt the adrenaline drain slowly from her body. She often carried a gun with her on investigations and when she was out alone, especially at night. This was not the first time she had had to use it, but until now, she had not had to kill anyone. Not since The War. She was an excellent shot and had considered aiming to wound, but the man could still have fired. An automatic machine gun would have spread bullets across the crowded banking hall, especially if the shot to the shoulder had combined with the recoil to make the man’s aim erratic. Hugh would not have been the only one to die. She breathed out slowly, leaning her weight reluctantly against Jack’s arm, unwilling to show weakness. The Inspector had acquiesced to her version of events a little too quickly, ‘avoiding paperwork’ she supposed. ‘ _I’m not sure my heroic constable deserves all the credit’_ he had said, he sounded almost approving – although Jack was a hard man to read. It was a relief, she was in no mood to brook male condescension right now. Sometimes, she reflected sadly, there are no good choices, sometimes you have no choice at all. His voice brought her back to herself, he was observing her with soft eyes which doubtless missed nothing.

  
‘You alright?’ He asked. His concern seemed genuine but measured, as if talking to a fellow officer not a civilian. It was an unanticipated level of respect despite being one she felt she had thoroughly earned and it steadied her further to know she was not expected to fall apart. Still, she wanted to return to the peace and privacy of her home, perhaps run a bath whilst she fully regained her composure. Her voice when she spoke was brittle, too high, it gave her away.

  
‘As well as can be expected Inspector. I'm sure Dot will want to take her time congratulating her gallant young constable but I'd just as soon be getting home. I do have my own case to wrap up after all.’

  
‘Of course, Miss Fisher. I'm afraid I will have to take a more detailed statement from you, but it can wait until tomorrow if you would prefer.’

  
Phryne merely arched her eyebrow in response, telling him quite clearly his sympathy was not required. She had done what had to be done, his discretion was appreciated but she needed neither praise not absolution. If he had felt the need to offer censure (thankfully he did not) she would have returned it with contempt.

  
He opened the passenger door of the Hispano for her, clearly intending to drive her home, but she shook her head and dropping his arm walked around to the driver’s seat. She would have liked to take him up on the offer if she was honest, she would be lying to herself if she claimed to be unaffected by what had happened and by what she had had to do. Sadly, it was not a luxury she could afford. If she wanted to continue to insinuate herself into criminal investigations through sheer force of personality, she needed him to respect her competence more than she wanted his compassion. She compensated by goading him.

  
‘We’ll be here until Christmas if I let you drive Inspector and I feel in need of a restorative.’ She made an attempt at an insouciant smile. ‘I'm sure Mr Butler will be able to furnish you with some tea if I can't tempt you with something stronger whilst you're still on duty.’ Her voice was cordial, gaining strength as she spoke. She expected him to argue but he surprised her.

  
‘Thank you, Miss Fisher, I may even impose upon you for a biscuit. Although I would appreciate it if you could refrain from driving in a manner that will force me to arrest you before we arrive, today's events have generated more than enough paperwork already.’ He caught her eye in the rear-view mirror and she returned his down turned smile with a wry twist of her red painted lips. She took a risk.

  
‘You've not arrested me yet today Jack. I suspect it's unlikely to happen over a motoring offence.’

  
There was nothing he could say to that, so he remained silent as they sped through the streets of Melbourne towards St Kilda, each lost in their own thoughts.

  
Mercifully without witnesses present, she had come close to confirming his assumptions about who had fired that unregistered weapon. Jack hoped she would not be foolhardy enough to speak more plainly, he was walking a delicate line, but choosing not to press the subject of who shot whom in that bank was beneficial to both of them. The Victoria Police would get the credit for apprehending a dangerous anarchist and she would avoid the scandal of lengthy court procedures, although given her wealth and connections as much as her case for self-defence, these would inevitably end up exonerating her anyway. Having heard the accounts of others at the scene, Jack was convinced that, had he been there, he would have killed that man too. In other circumstances, he would have liked to tell Miss Fisher as much, but it was dangerous. Letting go of plausible deniability exposed him and she was a woman who would use any leverage she had when it suited her purposes. He was also increasingly conscious of the fact that he was having to resist a rising temptation to try and impress her. That troubled him, he needed to stay in command of this situation and she was increasingly making him feel that he had to run to keep up.

  
Phryne grounded herself in the feel of the steering wheel beneath her fingers, the thrum of the Hispano’s powerful engine and her own dexterity behind the wheel. She needed to keep reality clearly in focus. The weight of blood was threatening to drag her back to France, back to other dead men whose faces she would rather not see. She realised she had been lying to herself, she did want absolution – not just for the specific death she had caused, but for the abstract guilt that lay beneath her search for justice, the voice that said ‘it should have been me’. It occurred to her that the man beside her, still observing with that intense yet inscrutable expression, had been a soldier, someone who might understand. She took another risk. As they drew closer to her home Phryne spoke, her confession was quiet, heavy with the impersonal guilt of the survivor.

  
‘You know I was in France, during the war?’ She had mentioned it in passing but he knew no details.

  
‘Nurse?’ He asked.

  
‘Ambulance driver.’

  
She paused, possibly waiting for another acerbic comment about her driving skills but Jack managed to resist the urge so she continued. ‘When I was there, this was quite soon after I'd signed up with the Ambulance Corps, I was cut off from my unit by flooding after a storm. I ended up in a tiny village, the name of which I never knew, along with a handful of German troops and four British POWS. They were too badly hurt to make an escape on their own but I… acquired a weapon from one of the German soldiers and... survived. Along with three of the four men they had taken prisoner. The Germans were not so lucky.’

  
Jack frowned. He had known there were women at the front of course – mostly nurses and ambulance crew - but not having been injured himself he had rarely had more than cursory dealings with them and had reflexively considered war to be no place for women. It was no place for anyone come to that. The woman beside him however, spoke like a soldier and she had clearly demonstrated that she had been equal to the experience. More than equal if she had really taken out five armed men with a stolen weapon. He was too familiar with death to romanticise the ugliness of that story. It grieved him that she should have had to face such horror and amazed him that she had escaped it to be, well, to be Phryne Fisher – in all her infuriating charm and irrepressible vitality.

  
‘You should never have been there.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Although I'm sure there are plenty of men who owe their lives to the fact that you were.’

  
‘None of us should have been there.’ She responded flatly, as the Hispano rounded a corner at a speed that made Jack clutch his hat to his head.

  
He could hardly deny it. ‘I signed up as a volunteer early on.’ He admitted. ‘Back when everyone still said it would all be over by Christmas. I thought I'd come home a hero.’ His voice was dry, with a hint of contempt for the naivety of a younger self long dead.

  
She nodded in sympathy, it was a story she recognised. ‘I thought I'd find escape...adventure...I suppose perhaps I did, in a way, but it wasn't what I'd imagined.’  
Jack wondered what on earth she could have been running from if she could still see The War as an escape, but she did not elaborate and he knew better than to ask. The car pulled up abruptly in front of Wardlow with a screech of tyres. As Phryne turned to face him, Jack could see guilt in her eyes fighting with defiance; she trusted her own judgement, but not quite enough to leave her decision to take a life undefended, even though he had not questioned it.

  
‘None of us should have been there, but once we were...sometimes you have no choice.’ She was convincing herself as much as him.

  
He shook his head and against his better judgement, crossed a line. ‘There’s always a choice Miss Fisher, but...I…my unit used the Browning automatic at the front. I am very grateful I didn’t have to see the worst it could have done in a room full of unarmed civilians.’

  
He did not need to mention his constable or Miss Williams; they both knew the what the likely outcome would have been for the young couple had Miss Fisher not been there. She nodded at him, grateful for his words, spoken and unspoken. Still, she was painfully aware that however justified he considered her actions, she had not saved her lover from being shot and wondered if perhaps the Inspector’s gratitude might stretch a little further.

  
‘That was down to Peter as much as me and he got himself shot for his efforts. What's going to happen to him Jack?’

  
‘He's still wanted in connection with several previous crimes. Even if he can get some leniency for his help on this case he’ll still serve time. I'm sorry Miss Fisher, there's not much I can do for him.’

  
She nodded sadly, dropping her gaze, no longer meeting Jack’s eyes as he continued.

  
‘He'll be safe where he is for now at least, he's not going anywhere on that leg. I'll go over to the hospital tomorrow and take him in for questioning – assuming he’s fit to be moved.’ He would have to arrest the man then Jack knew, there were limits to his willingness to bend the rules where law conflicted with natural justice and he had a duty and a job to do.

  
Phryne looked back at him. His face was utterly implacable, no hint of complicity. Twelve hours on a badly injured leg before Peter’s arrest. It was a chance – albeit a slim one - for him to get away and the man was a survivor, she held Jack’s gaze again, they all were. She couldn't quite tell if it was a chance the Inspector intended to provide and wouldn't risk thanking him even without words. He had crossed enough lines and kept enough secrets for her that day.

  
‘Stay away from the hospital Miss Fisher. There’s nothing you can do for him either.’ He said as if reading her mind.

  
She nodded, poker faced. ‘Of course, Inspector.’

  
Perhaps a quick call to Cess and Bert would be in order, she thought, they could usually be relied upon to assist a comrade in need and she would need their assistance in helping Peter’s daughter to escape to Queensland.

  
Jack slid out of the passenger seat and held open her door. Phryne exited the car with practiced elegance and effortless grace and they marched in close step as they made their way to her front door. The Inspector maintained his mask of professional neutrality over hot tea and excellent biscuits whilst taking her official statement. Phryne drank a small, medicinal glass of whisky, slowly, in deference to the time of day and debated through her heavily revised account of the robbery, whether or not the denouement to her own ‘delicate domestic matter’, could be reasonably left till tomorrow morning. In truth, she felt better today than she had after holding Yourka Rosen’s hand as life left him. Perhaps Jack had a point, taking the gunman’s life in that bank had been an ugly choice, but a choice nonetheless. In that respect, at least, it was preferable to the helpless passivity she felt in the face of tragedy she could not change.

  
As Jack got up to leave, putting his notebook away, he fixed her with a serious look; the clipped tone of official record replaced with a voice which was low and gentle.

  
‘You made the right choice today Phryne. Please try to avoid having to do so again.’

  
Her smile in response was small and sad; apologetic for the position it might put him in, not for her decision, never for her actions.

  
‘I always endeavour not to make promises I can't keep Jack.’

  
He sighed and nodded, frowning in reluctant acquiescence as he gathered up his coat and hat. One day, he was sure, she would face the consequences of her reckless ways, but today she had saved a great many lives and allowed his young constable to be named a hero for her actions, whilst she carried the weight of a man's death on her conscience. For all her apparent flippancy, it was justice and the protection of the innocent that she had sought, not the glorification of her own vanity. He felt a great rush of respect and admiration towards her and hoped that, if she was to see a day of reckoning, it was a long way off; although a cynical voice whispered that she would likely cash in on Collins heavy debt to her at every opportunity if she thought she could get away with it.

  
Phryne noted his change of countenance with approval. When it really mattered, she had found an ally here, as well as a challenging sparring partner, who incidentally, cut a rather fine figure a suit. She would not forget it.

  
‘Good afternoon Miss Fisher. I have no doubt our paths will cross again soon.’

  
Her customary smile returned, all cheeky charm with more than a hint of flirtation; Jack found it a relief to see even as it spelled trouble for him in every language known to man.

  
‘Now that Jack, is a promise I can make.’

  
Rolling his eyes slightly and almost succeeding in his efforts not to smile back, Jack left her house to walk alone towards City South Police Station. There he would write an official report; repeating a lie of mutual convenience and cementing their tacit conspiracy with paperwork.


End file.
